Asia Times: Christian vigilantes reappear in Muslim rebel area


	June 17, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Christian vigilantes reappear in Muslim rebel area
By Ed Lingao

ISABELA, Philippines - A big wooden cross loomed in the shadows, but all the attention was directed to what was unfolding beneath it. There, illuminated by a hundred candles, the leader was swinging his machete in a wide arc as it swiftly connected with a sick thwack on a man's belly.

The man doubled up in pain, but the blade failed to even break flesh. After a while, he straightened up unharmed, grinning from ear to ear, still clutching his amulets. The Christian vigilante group known as the Tadtad had just gained another member.

At the height of the Philippines' Muslim rebellion in the late 70s and early 80s, this scene was a familiar one across Cotabato, Zamboanga and Davao in the country's far south. At the time, the military had seen it fit to arm Christian vigilantes with guns to help it fight the Muslim insurgents.

But the groups, among them the Tadtad and the Ilagas, were also equipped with the belief that they had God-given invincibility. This made them more fierce and ruthless in their efforts to rid their communities of Muslims, rebels or not. Later, they would turn against even fellow Christians who got in their way, including Italian priest Tullio Favali, whom the Ilagas murdered in 1985.

Playing on some of the Christian residents' paranoia of being persecuted by a Muslim majority on Basilan, a remote island province in the Philippine southwest, Tadtad veterans from Zamboanga del Norte had come here to recruit more members into their fold - and they have been finding the task fairly easy.

As Gabriel Sagrado, a pseudonym for a Tadtad leader who is also a local government official, pointed out: ''We have what we call a silent war between the Christians and Muslims because most of the victims in the province of Basilan are Christians. We can say that there is a bit of ethnic cleansing here because all the victims since the 1980s have been Christians.''

''That's what they had done before,'' agreed an initiate who was among the 100 men that showed up at a Tadtad rite here in April. ''And up to now, it is like they are stepping on the Christians here in Basilan.''

Muslims make up about 70 percent of this remote southwestern island, which is also the base of the Abu Sayyaf, the extremist Islamic group that kidnapped 21 people, most of them Western tourists, from a nearby Malaysian island in late April.

The Abu Sayyaf's late founder, Abdurajak Janjalani, was from Basilan, but that has not spared the people here from being victimized by the group. Earlier this year, in fact, the Abu Sayyaf, now led by Janjalani's younger brother, kidnapped 17 schoolchildren, along with their teachers and a Catholic priest in eastern Basilan. The incident was just business as usual, the latest in a long list of kidnapping and extortion activities the group had been pulling off for years.

Extortion activities reportedly peaked here in 1998, when even the Isabela mayor was getting letters from the Abu Sayyaf, demanding money. But by then, mayor Luis Biel was probably used to it. Four years earlier, Biel's son Anthony was kidnapped by the same group. The boy was released after his father, who was not yet mayor at the time, paid for his ''board and lodging'', to many a euphemism for ransom.

Luis Biel was already one of Basilan's richest businessmen before he decided to run for the highest office in one of the most backward towns in the country. Basilan itself is known for rubber and copra, and is also abundant in marine and forest resources. Yet as late as last year, the province had only eight kilometers of concrete road and 43 kilometers of asphalt. Three of its municipalities are third-class towns while the other four are considered fifth class.

For all their province's riches, most people from Basilan remain poor. ''In Basilan, as far as agricultural products are concerned, those (in control) are the multinationals - Sime Darby, Menzi plantation, Basilan lumber, Sta Clara lumber, Enrile plantation,'' said Isabela Councilor Herminio Montebon, referring to foreign and local big firms. ''The local people have been reduced to being mere workers.''

Muchtar Muarip, a local road building contractor, says corruption also pulls back the region: ''The problem here is that if you have a project, there are those who will ask for 10 percent before you get the contract. Go higher up the ladder and those with the guns also ask. That's why it has been difficult to develop Basilan.'' Guns are also said to outnumber the people in Basilan. Here in the capital of Isabela, private security guards routinely tout M-16 Armalites, while the governor's private army parades in front of the provincial capitol bristling with all sorts of guns and knives. Just about everyone is believed to carry a handgun.

''We've had a lot of experiences here, especially in Muslim-dominated communities, that makes it seem like if you don't have any gun, you don't deserve any respect,'' said St Clara parish priest Fr Cerilo Nacorda. ''As if your dignity is equivalent to what you have with you.''

Nacorda himself usually takes either his M-16 Armalite or .45 caliber pistol whenever he ventures out, and especially when he travels on the highway where the Abu Sayyaf abducted him in 1994. He was among the 90 people the group kidnapped that day. The rebels shot several of their captives by the road then hauled the rest off to their mountain hideout. Nacorda was the last to be freed by the rebels, after being held for two months. Throughout that ordeal, Nacorda said, the rebels went out of their way to humiliate him. He now has a deep-seated hatred for the Abu Sayyaf.

''Angry? Of course, because personally, I never did them wrong, but they treated me like an animal,'' said Nacorda. ''If they only showed me a little respect as a human being, even if not as a priest.''

Rumor now has it that Nacorda was responsible for setting up a new vigilante group in the province, called the Coalition of New Christians for Empowerment and Reform (Concern Basilan), an umbrella group that covers all the other smaller anti-Muslim vigilante groups. But he declined to confirm if he had any role in Concern, the headquarters of which are in his parish.

Meanwhile, the resurgence of the vigilante movement, as well as its presence here, has revived memories of vigilante abuse. Recalled Montebon: ''At the height of martial law, I was assigned to Cotabato, I saw how they made no distinctions, even (going after) children, the aged, women. They were killing innocent Muslims civilians who had nothing to do with the rebellion.''

Some of the Tadtad initiates here were also making no distinctions between rebels and civilians. ''Of course, the Abu Sayyaf and Muslims, they belong to the same family, they are the same,'' said one initiate. ''The Christians, if only they could also become united, that's what we are fighting for.''

But for all the suspicions and the tensions, Basilenos are not having gunbattles on their streets, and most seem determined to keep the peace, even if it is an uneasy one, despite the ravings of extremist elements, both Christian and Muslim.

They would have preferred, of course, not to have yet another fanatic group around and risk igniting religious passions in the province. Montebon said it was bad enough to have the Abu Sayyaf - and now there are the Christian vigilante groups. Said Montebon: ''We do not need a third party here, that just might be the start of trouble.''

(Inter Press Service)

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